Cray earned
a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in 1950
from the University of Minnesota. In 1951 he earned a master of
science degree in applied mathematics from the same institution.

From 1950 to
1957, Mr. Cray held several positions with Engineering Research Associates
(ERA) of St. Paul, Minnesota. At ERA, he worked on the development
of the ERA 1101 scientific computer for the U.S. government. Later,
he had design responsibility for a major portion of the ERA 1103,
the first commercially successful scientific computer. While with
ERA, he worked with the gamut of computer technologies ranging from
vacuum tubes and magnetic amplifiers to transistors. Cray stayed
six years with ERA where he designed several other systems. In 1957
he left ERA with other engineers, a. o. Norris, to establish Control
Data Corporation.

By 1960 Seymour Cray won the reputation
of a genius in designing high performance computers and
completed the design of the first fully transistorized computers:
Control Data 1604. Straight after that he started the design
of the first system that was worthy to be called a supercomputer:
the CDC 6600 with a freon-cooling system, then hold technically impossible.
Also for this system he developed an instruction set that would later
be called RISC (a term coined by Dave Patterson)

Seymour Cray who started the development of supercomputers shaped
the high performance computing industry for years to come, that was
around 1970.

The last system that Seymour worked on at CDC was the 8600 a first
in massive parallelism and multi processor architecture. In the
same time this type of machine was too far ahead of time and the
project got scrapped by management due to cut backs in budgets and
payroll difficulties.

In
1972, Seymour Cray founded Cray Research to design and build the
world's highest performance general-purpose supercomputers. His
Cray-1 computer established a new standard in supercomputing upon
its introduction in 1976.

In
the years following the company's founding, Mr. Cray relinquished
the company's management reins to devote more time to computer
development. From 1972 to 1977 he served as director, chief executive
officer, and president of the company. In October 1977, he left
the presidency, but remained chief executive officer and became
chairman of the board. In 1980, Mr. Cray resigned as chief executive
officer, and in 1981, he stepped aside as chairman of the board
to devote himself full time to the Cray-2 project as an independent
contractor for Cray Research. For some time, he remained a director
and a member of the Policy Committee. Later, Cray worked to
develop a successor to the Cray-2 system and explored gallium
arsenic technology.

Following
the CRAY-2, was the CRAY-3 which was not commercially successful.
Too far behind schedule and too many technologically hurdles
left, this is why the machine got dumped by the management. He never
completed the CRAY-4 and left the company.

When he had to close
the doors on Cray Computer Corporation in 1994, he immediately began
to evaluate options available to build high performance systems out
of commodity parts. He was impressed with the strides that the microprocessor
manufacturers had made, and was convinced that within another iteration
or two, the off-the-shelf microprocessor would provide performance
competitive with custom processors. Convinced early this year that
he knew he could provide very high performance at very low cost,
he put into place his plans and started a new company, one which
bears his initials, SRC Computers, Inc. The company will continue
to follow the path laid out by Seymour and will deliver a product
of Seymour's design.

He died in 1996 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from injuries suffered
from a car accident.

Famous quote

When told that Steve Jobs bought a CRAY to help design the next Apple, Seymour
Cray said, "Funny, I am using an Apple to simulate the CRAY-3."

Chronology

1925 Born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, USA

1950 B.S. Electrical Engineering,
University of Minnesota

1950-1957 Engineering Research Associates

1951 M.S. Applied Mathematics, University of Minnesota

1957-1972 Control Data Corp.

1972-1989 Cray Research Inc.

1989-1995 Cray Computer Corp.,

1996 SRC Computers Inc.,

1996 Died caused by a car accident

Honors
and awards

1968 awarded the W.W. McDowell Award by
the American Foundation of Information Processing Societies for his
work in the computer field.

1972 presented with the Harry
H. Good Memorial Award for his contributions to large-scale computer
design and the development of multiprocessing systems.